Originally published: 11 November 2022 |Amended & Adapted for republication: 25 March 2023
My journey through the earliest days of Covid…
From the earliest days of the Covid-19 pandemania that gripped the world, I took to investigating, reflecting on, and writing down some of my thoughts, feelings, and questions about what was going on. I grounded myself as best I could in the shared realities and experiences all around me, in particular those which were being marginalised, vilified, and censored by the mainstream.
Since March 2020, when the fear-mongering and pandemania really started to hit South Africa and the world, I journalled my daily questions and responses about what was unfolding in real-time. My journalling continues to this day, three years on.
I have a collection of poems that I wrote, mainly during the 2020-2021 period of the Covid-19 assault. They capture my own questioning inquiry and also my deeply-felt alarm and dread about what was unfolding, especially within South Africa.
I also speak in these poems of my growing trust in God, and of my hope and confidence for a better way forward. I was keen to inspire curiosity, compassion, and courage, and to urge ongoing resilience and resistance to the falsehoods and fraud that I believed were confronting us everywhere through the many mouthpieces of the dominant order. I have provisionally titled this (unpublished) collection of poems, “Locked down in Covidland.”
…Enter Daily Maverick 168
When the Daily Maverick, a South African daily online publication with a record of progressive political journalism since 2009, piloted its Daily Maverick 168 print newspaper edition in August 2020, I became an avid reader. I also wanted to be an influencer of sorts, especially on Covid-related matters. So I shared some of my articles with the DM 168 editor, Heather Robertson from early 2021.
The first of my articles that got published in the DM 168 was in May 2021. The editorialised title was: “Maybe Covid 19 is the Spark That Ignites Our Individual and Collective Minds Bodies and Souls to New Ways of Being and Doing In Our World.” The title was taken from a sentence in the article itself. You can read this article here: https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/daily-maverick/20210501/281848646461300
A few more of my articles (including some of my poems) were later featured in DM 168. I had some hope that this newspaper would somehow rise to the occasion and address the many serious issues related to the now intensifying Covid pandemania. I hoped that it would spearhead calls for open, public dialogues with experts from all sides of the issue, especially those related to the real origins of this virus as well as its early treatments which were being heavily contested at the time.
DM168 joins the villification cabal…
Sadly, if predictably, even this much-vaunted ‘progressive’ newspaper followed the mainstream narrative. They even joined in on the vilification and demonising of well-researched voices which offered alternative data and evidence from that of the dominant ones. One such alternative voice was the Pandemics Data and Analytics (PANDA) which DM168 did a hatchet job on in this nefarious and poorly researched article: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-02-28-kung-flu-panda-dodgy-analytics-or-pandemic-propaganda/
PANDA offered this response which the DM 168 refused to publish: https://www.pandata.org/kung-flu-panda/
There were several other attacks on PANDA and other alternative voices on Covid in the months that followed. This offered me adequate evidence that the Daily Maverick, rather than pursuing ‘progressive’ journalism, had in reality joined the cabals which had been deeply captured by Big Pharma, Big Tech, and Big Money. With its stated slogan, Defender of Truth, DM had become a defender and champion of the one-sided globalist fear-mongering and skewed narratives on Covid-19. They arrogantly and unashamedly advocated the one-size-fits-all gene therapies (a.k.a. “vaccines”) for the treatment of the virus, as one sees clearly in this article: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-12-07-gsk-vaccine-antibody-injection-both-show-promise-south-africa-registers-13143-new-cases/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1638915479
Launching my personal criticism of DM168…
I directed this personal public criticism of the Daily Maverick:
“The Daily Maverick, as most of us here know, is just one of the captured mainstream newsfeeds, and this has been proven repeatedly during the entirety of this "pandemic." The DM and its entire Editorial board know better, but they intentionally choose power and money and expediency, over good science, sound ethics, and compassionate public health. They are shameless collaborators in policies and practices that have exacerbated the misery and oppression of the majority of our citizens, with the help of privileged minorities. They have refused to engage in courageous and open dialogue with dissenting voices and have instead pursued reckless agendas of censorship, vitriol, and demonisation. The DM will be exposed even more over the coming months!”
At this time, I also accompanied my public criticism of the Daily Maverick by sharing this sobering and courageous piece of journalism by Brian Pottinger, and encouraged all South African citizens to rise up and resist the imperial elites and those in service of their agendas: https://unherd.com/2021/12/south-africas-looming-vaccine-revolt/
Open Letter to the Daily Maverick Insider Team
On 18 November 2021, I wrote this Open Letter to the Daily Maverick Insider Team:
“Your list of great achievements in "Defending Truth" in several areas of our SA life - political, economic, social, legal, and public health life, is to be celebrated. This was why I looked forward to reading your columns, and to then supporting and even contributing to your print version of the DM168 after it was launched earlier this year.
Where I feel disgusted, disappointed, and angry with the Editorial chief and the entire DM team of journalists is in your unfettered and uncritical zeal for the one-sided narratives on the Covid-19 pandemic and its treatment. In this area, you demonstrate an obsession with defending, not the Truth, but the 'truths' of only the currently dominant science and public health agencies, both globally and in SA. There is increasing evidence that these mainstream and dominant narratives continue to be heavily funded by Big Pharma, Big Tech, and Big Business, and their protocols and rules are being enforced by collaborative and coercive forces of State everywhere, including SA.
On the other hand, you continue to show a greedy, arrogant, and relentless push to marginalize, vilify, ridicule, demonize, scapegoat, and censor alternative views on this virus and its treatment, even when these views come well-researched, evidentially-grounded, and carefully documented (and which are often far superior to most of your poor to mediocre journalism). In this regard, I find your attitude and journalism decidedly disrespectful and shameful. Your treatment of many top scientists and medical professionals across the spectrum, and of many diligent, clear-thinking legal & civic groups is shocking and scandalous!
Equally shameful is your fear, and your failure to call for and to advocate bold, open, and public dialogues with those who strongly question and who dissent from the mainstream narratives and the established ways of treatment for the virus. Instead, you continue to sideline them, without the right to reply. And you continue to allow only those voices who are supporters of this mainstream to talk and debate among themselves.
In this, I can only say you fail to act up to your so-called progressive slogan as "defenders of truth." In matters related to Covid-19, vaccination, and treatments, you show that you are one more notorious example of media capture by the powerful elites.
DM, here you are part of the team of bad guys who are winning. But only for now!
I have every confidence that Truth will set us free from the mounting tyranny of lies being propagated by the elites who now include media support from those like you.
Citizens of the World and in SA will step up, resist, and end the anti-human controls that are now being enforced and entrenched.
Roger Arendse - ordinary citizen for free choice, true science, and public health for the common good”
As was my experience with my open letter to the South African Council of Churches – see my previous blog at https://eaglecoaching.wordpress.com/2022/11/06/no-amnesty-without-repentance-what-are-some-issues-at-stake-in-this-ongoing-conversation/ - I received no response from anyone at the DM newspaper.
I was determined not to let the Daily Maverick off the hook for its obvious censorship of the alternative Covid narratives. So on 11 June 2022, I wrote this letter to Heather Robertson, the Editor of DM 168 in which I also shared with her the well-documented and researched World Council for Health Pharmacovigilance Report that had come out at this time (https://worldcouncilforhealth.org/resources/covid-19-vaccine-pharmacovigilance-report/):
“Dear Heather
Here is the link to the recent World Council for Health (WCH) Pharmacovigilance Report (https://worldcouncilforhealth.org/resources/covid-19-vaccine-pharmacovigilance-report/)
This Report was prepared by the WCH to determine whether sufficient pharmacovigilance (drug safety) data exists on WHO VigiAccess, CDC VAERS, EudraVigilance, and UK Yellow Card Scheme to establish a safety signal on Covid-19 Vaccines. These sources are some of the largest and most well-established databases in the world.
The Public has an interest in the information contained in this Report.
Media such as the Daily Maverick has a responsibility to share this information with the Public, without fear or favour.
I invite and challenge the DM to publish this Report.
The Daily Maverick is also encouraged to set up open, public webinars & dialogues with leading experts (including those at the WCH) to assess the data & evidence presented herein, in the interest of truth-seeking, transparency, and accountability. WCH contacts are readily available at www.worldcouncilforhealth org
South Africa has a steering committee member on the WCH - Shabnam Paleser Mohamed - who is an award-winning activist, journalist (The People's Voice & Trialsite News), mediation lawyer, and arts education advocate.
It goes without saying that History will judge the DM and mainstream media for the choices and decisions it makes in this regard. Will you censor, hide, or openly engage with this Report and other available information?
Yours sincerely,
Roger Arendse”
Sad and predictable silence…
Alas, and now with some predictability, I received no DM acknowledgment of my letter, nor any response on the important WCH Pharmacovigilance Report. There and then, I chose to unsubscribe from this captured journalism. Since then, I am not aware of any DM 168 reporting of these important Report findings.
There must be accountability!
My sense is that all SA newspapers and their editorial teams who have driven the one-sided Covid narratives should be brought to answer for their direct and indirect collusion in spreading the many falsehoods of the mainstream, and promoting the fraudulent policies and protocols of Big Pharma (especially in these earliest days of the Covid pandemania).
Fast forward to the present time. Many of these mainstream media channels (including the Daily Maverick) will likely be scrambling to save face, obfuscate any liability for their poor journalism, and chose to come on board with evidence-based and truthful reporting on Covid-related matters. But how little, and how very late!!
They have betrayed good and courageous journalism when it mattered most. And they have betrayed South African citizens! There must be accountability!